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A new form of social organization, based on a fundamental change in the
economic order of society. Socialists believe that the present economic
order, in which industry is carried on by private competitive capital, must
and ought to pass away, and that the normal economic order of the future
will be one with collective means of production and associated labor
working for the general good. [The "Britannica," in the same article,
cataloguing the varieties of Socialism, includes in the list Anarchism, of
which it calls Proudhon the acknowledged father.]

Meyer's Konversations-Lexicon:

Literally a system of social organization, commonly a designation for all
those teachings and aspirations which contemplate a radical change of the
existing social and economical order, in favor of a new order more in
harmony with the requirements of the general welfare and the sense of
justice than the existing order.

Sanders's Wörterbuch der deutscher Sprache:

A system according to which civil society is to be founded on the
community of labor and the proportional distribution of the product.

Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia:

Socialism holds an intermediate position between pure Communism
and simple co-operation. Unlike Communism, it does not advocate the
absolute abolition of property, but aims simply at a more just and equitable
distribution of it. Every man according to his capacity, and every
capacity according to its work, is the great maxim laid down by Saint Simon,
and to carry out this maxim is the great goal of all Socialistic movements.

Chambers's Encyclopædia:

The name given to a class of opinions opposed to the present organization
of society, and which seeks to introduce a new distribution of property
and labor, in which organized co-operation rather than competition
should be the dominating principle.

American Cyclopædia:

The doctrine that society ought to be organized on more harmonious
and equitable principles. Communism and co-operation are its principal
divisions or varieties. Communism and Socialism are sometimes used as
synonymous; but generally the former term refers to the plans of social
reform based on or embracing the doctrine of a complete community of
goods. Co-operation is understood to be that branch of Socialism which
is engaged exclusively with theories of labor and methods of distributing
profits, and which advocates a combination of many to gain advantages
not to be realized by individuals. Viewed as a whole, Socialistic doctrines
have dealt with everything that enters into the life of the individual, the
family, the Church, or the State, whether industrially, morally, or spiritually.

Universal Cyclopædia:

A system which, in opposition to the competitive system at present

prevailing, seeks to reorganize society on the basis, in the main, of a